Two Days To Tennessee
by RionahAnha
Summary: This second time around deal was never easy- not to accept, not to adjust to, not to appreciate- but Dean suddenly thinks that maybe this is the wrong route. Maybe this is what Sam needs. Maybe this is what he needs. He wonders if he could live with himself if he turned this car around right now and never looked back. DeAged Sam. Rated T for language.


**Disclaimer: _I wish._**

**_Again, a big thank you to all of you who have continued to read and provide feedback on these stories! I hope you continue to follow and enjoy!_**

Sam has a nightmare their first night out from Old Grave, and his screaming rouses the tenants in the next room. Dean can hear them talking to each other through the paper thin walls. He tries to ignore them, tries to focus on the sobbing mess that is his six and a half year old brother, but it's hard. Sam won't look at him, won't talk to him, but he clings to Dean like a leech on skin, whimpering. Dean takes him into his own bed, tries to get him back to sleep, rubs his back and strokes his hair and wonders how the hell he's going to be able to drive eleven hours tomorrow if he doesn't sleep tonight. It's two more days to Tennessee and already he's not sure how he's going to make it.

Sam sleeps eventually, and the neighbors next door stop talking. Dean lies there in the dark of the motel room and thinks about how much he doesn't miss _this_: scratchy blankets and funky smells and neon lights glaring at him through a dirty window. These rooms, these make shift homes, were never considered perks of the job. No wonder Sam hates it so much – now, as well as then. He falls asleep propped against the headboard, and when he wakes up in the morning, his neck is stiff and his head is pounding. Sam is still in his bed, tousle haired and clutching that dirty blue blanket to his chest, and Dean thinks wearily that maybe he should just book singles for the rest of the trip and save himself some money. He shakes his brother awake.

"Sammy. Sammy, man, come on- time to get up. We gotta get going."

Sam rouses slowly, whimpering and pushing Dean's hands away. He's got this funny breathing thing going on, and Dean thinks with dismay about how much fun a trip with a sick Sam is not going to be. "Sam. Come on."

He gets out of bed and Sam doesn't. It's a little after six in the morning and the day is already warm. They're somewhere over the New Mexico border and outside of the motel window, the ground is arid and flat, stone grey under an azure sky. It looks just enough like home that some of his discomfort is eased. He props open the window to let in a little of the sweet desert morning smell and goes to shower.

He showers and shaves and dresses and when he comes out, Sam is sitting on the end of his bed, watching cartoons through sleep smeared eyes. He whistles. "Turn that off and get dressed," he orders, and Sam grudgingly slides off of the foot of the bed and flicks the ancient set off.

"I'm hungry," he says shortly, and Dean sits at the chair at the kitchenette table, sticks his foot into a boot.

"We'll grab breakfast on our way out."

"I want Lucky Charms."

"There's a diner up the road," Dean tells him. Sam glares at him from next to the television. "We'll stop there."

"I don't want that stuff," Sam says sullenly, but he goes to where Dean dropped the duffel last night and kneels to root through it. He emerges with an armful of clothes and goes into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him with a bang.

Dean loads the car and checks out while Sam dresses. When he comes back, Sam is sitting in front of the television again. Spongebob is on. Dean sees with a weary resignation that he didn't bother to comb his hair.

"You brush your teeth?" He asks, and Sam shrugs. "Sam."

"I _did, _Dean." Sam glares at him again; Dean thinks that someday, his brother's face is going to stick that way.

"Let's go then." He waits patiently while Sam turns off the television, finds his Transformers backpack, finds Iron Man, finds his blanket, and says good bye to the Indian painted on the wall above the beds. He pauses in front of Dean.

"We didn't make the beds, Dean," he tells him, and Dean pushes him through the doorway, out into the rising heat of the day.

"The maids'll do it." He closes the motel room door. Sam grins at him.

"We should get a maid for our house, Dean."

"I have a maid." Dean cocks an eyebrow, sweeps Sam off of the ground and bundles him into the back of the Impala. "You."

Sam rolls his eyes, but he giggles. Dean welcomes the sound. Sam hates long car rides, and he hates these trips, so if he can get his brother to laugh, it's promising.

The promise ends at the cheap diner down the road, where there are no Lucky Charms. Sam won't eat eggs, he won't eat toast, he won't eat oatmeal, and he definitely won't eat pancakes. "They're not yours," he tells Dean stubbornly, and though Dean is a little flattered that Sammy thinks so much of his culinary skills, he's more irritated that Sam is already this difficult this early.

"You have to eat something," he tells Sam, and Sam picks at a peeling edge of the Formica tabletop.

"There's Cheetos in the car," he mutters, and Dean rolls his eyes.

"You're not eating Cheetos for breakfast, Sam." He taps the menu with one finger. "Pick something from here or I'm picking for you."

Sam continues to pick at the table top. The sound reverberates back in Dean's head. "Sam."

"I'm not hungry."

"Yes, you are."

"I want Cheetos."

That's the end of that, Dean thinks angrily. He waves over the waitress who has been watching them since they walked in, and he orders the morning special for himself and scrambled eggs and toast for Sam. Sam picks at the table and refuses to look up, even when the waitress calls him sweetie and asks what he wants to drink.

"He'll have orange juice," Dean tells her, and Sam rolls his eyes.

When their food comes, Sam refuses to eat. He pulls his toast into little pieces with his fingers, and when Dean tells him to stop, he uses his fork to smash his eggs into an indigestible mess. When he is done destroying his food, he looks up at Dean with a smirk, and Dean shovels a piece of bacon into his own mouth, points his fork at Sam's plate.

"You're eating that," he says sternly. "All of it, or I'm throwing your Cheetos out."

"No."

No is Sam's favorite word. Dean recognizes the futility of the situation and motions the waitress back over. He pays for their breakfast while Sam smugly sips his orange juice. He thinks he's won, but when they go back out to the car, Dean buckles Sam into the back, fishes the bag of Cheetos out of the travel bag, and throws it into a nearby trashcan.

That, he realizes immediately, was a bad move. Sam moves from irritable to downright unmanageable in a matter of seconds, and Dean settles himself in for the long haul, for eleven hours in the car with his bratty kid brother. They pull away from the curb and take the highway out of town and Sam wastes no time in picking at Dean's every nerve. They're not even twenty minutes into the drive and Dean already wants to strangle him.

"Sam," he says sternly, "Cut that shit out, okay? You asked for it."

"I didn't!" Sam cries tearfully. He hiccups. "You're-you're the worst brother ever!"

"Of course I am," Dean mutters. He's the worst brother ever and he's the meanest person alive and he's a fun sucker and he's the world's biggest jerk. The world's biggest jerk is his personal favorite. He thinks he should get that one made into a t-shirt or a hat or something. "Sam, knock it off. I mean it."

Sam stops the shouting but not the crying. He cries to himself for another twenty minutes and then falls asleep, drooped sideways over a pillow, his face smeared with snot and tears. All that, Dean thinks wearily, over a frigging bag of Cheetos.

New Mexico's interstates are long and flat and empty. He takes the back roads, the deserted ones that run through ramshackle reservation towns and past acres of cattle farms. The tarmac is hot and black; the sky is open and blue; beneath his fingers, his baby purrs and chases.

Sam wakes up sometime after nine. Dean watches in the mirror as he rubs his eyes and hunts around the backseat for Iron Man. "Dean, when can we stop?"

"In a bit." He turns the radio down. "Want to come sit up front, Sammy?"

Sam unbuckles and climbs over the seatback while Dean is still driving. He could sit next to the window, but instead he plants himself in the middle of the seat, as close to Dean as he can get. He puts a hand on Dean's thigh. "Can I drive?"

Dean laughs. "Not a chance, dude."

Sam sighs. He fiddles with the knobs on the radio, tries to stick Iron Man in the cassette deck, picks at a thread on Dean's knee. "Dean, this is boring. Can we go home?"

Dean's been waiting for that question. "Sammy- you know we will."

"When?"

"After we go to Tennessee."

"I hate Tennessee."

Dean sighs. "You've never been."

"Yes, I have. You told me I did."

It's been one month and two weeks since Sam found those pictures in Dean's dresser drawer, since he opened the can of worms that is the truth. He hasn't been the same since, and Dean's despairing that the Sam he's gotten used to, the Sam he's had for the last two years is gone just as surely as _his _Sam is.

"Sam, that doesn't count-"

"Why?"

"You don't remember it."

Sam huffs. "So? I still went. I still hate it." He scoots across the seat, away from Dean, huddles against the door panel. His face is dark. "I want to go home, Dean."

Dean turns up the radio.

They stop for lunch just over the Oklahoma line, at an Arby's, where Sam whines his way through half a cheeseburger and spills his fries. "I want a soda," he tells Dean. "I hate juice."

"You hate everything," Dean says. He's sure as shit not giving Sam soda and then putting him in a car for six more hours. "Drink your juice."

"No."

Dean takes the juice with them and puts it in the cooler. Sam lies on the backseat on his stomach and looks through his picture books with Iron Man. "Dean, where are we?"

"Oklahoma."

"Did I come here before?"

Dean hates these questions. He wishes, not the first time, that he had taken Bobby's advice and lied to Sam about the pictures. "He deserves to know," Dean had argued. "I can't lie to him, Bobby." But he could have and he knows it.

"Dean?"

"Yeah," he says gruffly. "A couple times."

"How come?"

Sam doesn't know about the rest. That Dean won't tell him. Saving people, hunting things- that's no sort of thing for a kid to have to think about. He remembers the damage it did Sam the first time. He remembers the nightmares, the panic attacks, the anxiety and depression. He won't be responsible for placing that kind of burden on his brother a second time.

"How come, Dean?"

"Just- to visit." Sam rolls onto his back, fits his feet against the window. "Get your feet off the window."

Sam does. "I'm hungry."

"You should have eaten your lunch."

"I want Cheetos." Sam eyes him. "You could stop and get me some Cheetos, Dean."

Dean fixes Sam with a stare. "There's apples in the cooler."

"I hate apples. I want Cheetos."

Dean sets his jaw, looks at the road ahead. They're behind a cattle truck. He can see the low backs swaying through the slats on the gate. "You're not having Cheetos, Sam."

"You shouldn't'a thrown them out."

"_You _should have eaten your breakfast."

Sam scowls. He rolls over, putting his back to Dean, and buries his face in the leather seatback. "This trip sucks," he says loudly, and Dean rolls his eyes.

Oklahoma is another long stretch. They're a quarter of the way through when evening sets in and Dean pulls off into some town – Hitchcock, population 4,000- and parks at a bed and breakfast. Sam looks distastefully at the building.

"This looks like a girl's house," he says, and coughs. He slides out of the car when Dean opens the door and bends to press a palm against the short blades of grass that cover the front lawn. They don't have grass back home in Old Grave. "It's all green here, Dean."

"We're not in the desert anymore, Sammy." Dean takes the duffel from the trunk, slings it over his shoulder. He hands Sam his Megatron backpack. "You got everything?"

"Did we live in the desert before?"

Dean doesn't answer. He locks the Impala and hefts Sam into his arms, settles him against his hip. Sam tugs impatiently on his shirt collar. "Dean, did we?"

"Hush, Sammy." The lobby of the bed and breakfast is simple and clean, a far cry from the motel they stayed at last night. A young woman looks up from the computer behind the counter as they enter.

"Checking in?" She asks in a twang that has to be Texan, and Sam pulls on Dean's collar again.

"Dean, she talks funny," he whispers, and Dean puts him down, pins him between the counter and his legs.

"Checking in," he tells the girl. "Just one room, please."

She smiles and slides the forms across the desk. She's cute, with soft brown hair and blue eyes and freckles. Dean thinks vaguely that if they had come here two years ago, he would have tried for her number, the end of her shift-

"Dean, they got Cheetos here." Sam tugs on his jeans, points. Dean follows his finger to the far wall, where a vending machine hides behind a potted plant. "They got Cheetos, Dean."

"That's nice." Dean rifles through his wallet for his credit card, passes it to the clerk. Sam tries to slip past him; he catches him by an arm and pulls him back. "Stay with me," he warns, and Sam huffs, plops down on the ground.

"I want some Cheetos, Dean. I didn't get any today."

The clerk hands the card back with a hesitant smile. "He's cute," she says, and Dean forces a smile.

"Yeah, he's adorable," he replies flatly, and Sam pulls himself to his feet, sags against Dean's knees.

"Can we have dinner now?" He asks. "I'm starving."

They find their room on the second floor. It's nothing special- blue wall papered walls, lace curtains, homemade quilts on the beds. Sam touches one tentatively and sticks out his tongue. "This looks like Mallory's dollhouse," he says. Dean scoops him up and drops him on the bed, where he bounces, giggling. The sound of it is welcome.

"You hungry, dude?" He asks, and Sam crawls to his knees, bounds across the bed to Dean, nodding, his hair flopping into his eyes. "There's a pizza place down the road. You think you can do pizza tonight, Sammy?"

"Pizza!" Sam crowes. He stands on the bed, wobbling, places his hands on Dean's chest for support. "Can we get extra cheese?"

If it means Sam will eat it, he'll get it. "Extra, extra cheese," he promises, and Sam grins wildly, swings himself off of the bed, and hurries to put his sneakers back on.

"Can you tie them?"

"You know how." But Dean crouches and walks Sammy through it, the bunny-hole and the rabbit ears. Sam fumbles, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, and Dean thinks suddenly, tragically, that he is going to miss _this_.

They walk to the pizza place because it's that close and because Sam wants to step on the grass. "How come we don't have this at home?" He asks, and Dean shrugs.

"It's too hot. It won't grow if it's too hot."

"Did we have grass at our home before?"

_We didn't have a home_, Dean thinks angrily. He swings Sammy back up into his arms and holds him tight as they enter the restaurant. It's a typical mom and pop joint- fake brick walls, red plastic booths, tiled floors, records on the walls. He's seen a hundred of these, identical from state to state, town to town. Sam pushes at his chest.

"You're squishing me, Dean."

"Sorry." Dean drops Sam into a booth and slides in across from him. A waiter approaches them. He's in jeans and a maroon shirt and probably hasn't shaved in two or three days. He smells faintly like pot.

"You guys all set to order?" He asks, and Dean orders a large cheese pizza and, when Sammy turns those stupid big brown eyes on him, two Cokes.

"You better not be up all night," he warns, and Sam eagerly sticks the straw into his mouth and sucks furiously. "Sammy- take it easy."

"I love this stuff," Sam says breathlessly. Dean sighs.

Their pizza comes and Sam dives into it. He eats three pieces, splattering his chin with sauce and grease. He chokes twice on the cheese, downs the entire soda, and talks about a mile a minute. Dean listens with half an ear through the pressure building behind his eyes, through the foggy sheet of exhaustion dropping down over him. There's too much grease on the pizza- he can barely stomach two pieces. He sips his soda and wishes it was a beer, wishes he were back home in Old Grave, eating dinner in his own kitchen.

Sam's hopped up on the sugar and the soda, and he's all but buzzing when Dean pays and they go back outside, where the sun has sunk over the rooftops and the sky is a soft pearly purple. Sam kneels down in the grass and presses his face close to it. "Is it still green when it's dark, Dean?"

Dean crouches beside his brother, laces an arm over his shoulder. The smell of fresh cut grass is one he's forgotten, and he breathes it in now. "You smell that, Sammy?"

Sam sniffs. "I smell you," he says honestly, and Dean stands, pulls him to his feet.

"Come on," he says. "Bed time."

Back in their room, Dean puts on the television for Sam while he showers. "You need anything, come in and tell me," he says. Sam nods. "Don't answer the door, okay?"

He takes his time in the shower, standing face first under the spray, eyes closed. He drowns himself in it; the aches of the day, the irritation of the drive, his fear of the future wash down the drain. When he steps out, he feels refreshed, clean. He brushes his teeth and pushes the door open with his foot, calls out it for Sam. "Sammy, come brush your teeth."

There's no answer. He waits a minute, then pokes his head out the door. Sam is asleep on the floor, breathing gently into the carpet. Dean takes a minute to relish the sight. There isn't often a time when Sam isn't moving, when Sam isn't anything less than a whirlwind of activity and noise. Dean watches him sleep, watches his eyelashes flutter and his nose crinkle, then gently eases him off of the floor and into the bed. He finds the blue afghan and Iron Man and lays them beside Sam on the pillow, brushes Sam's hair back with his fingers. He still has pizza sauce on his face; Dean decides that going to bed looking like a slob won't hurt for one night and lets him be.

He turns off all of the lights and opens the windows and climbs into bed himself. It's a breezy night; April in Oklahoma is a nice season, he thinks sarcastically, as long as you can avoid the tornadoes.

He sleeps well, undisturbed except for once when Sam has to pee and can't find the bathroom. The morning brings with it a rain storm, and the air that comes in the window is wet and strong. Sam stands beside it while Dean dresses and packs their things.

"Dean, can I have Cheetos today?"

Dean sighs. "Maybe at lunch," he says, and waits for it- the meltdown, the argument, maybe a shoe or something thrown at him- but Sam is uncharacteristically well behaved this morning.

"Okay, Dean-o," he agrees happily. "Can you tie my shoes for me?"

They get breakfast at McDonalds on their way out of town. Sam nibbles on a hashbrown, wipes the grease off of his fingers onto his shirt. Dean sighs. "Napkins, Sammy, napkins."

"I don't got any," Sam says, and Dean passes him a handful over the seat. "Dean, can I have some coffee?"

Dean chuckles. "Yeah, right. Drink your juice."

"I don't like this juice. It doesn't have the peel in it."

"Pulp, Sammy, not the peel." He sighs as he merges onto the highway, aligns himself alongside a Volvo with a kayak strapped on the roof. "Just drink it, Sam."

"It's gross."

Dean sets his teeth. "Sam-"

"_No_, Dean." Sam crosses his arms. "I don't want to."

Dean swallows against the shout building in his throat. He flips on the radio, spins the knob till he finds something that isn't hoot'n'hollering country, and pins Sam with a stare. Sam stares back, his face red, his hashbrown and orange juice abandoned on the seat next to him. "Eat your breakfast, Sam," he snaps. Sam looks away from him, out the window, and smirks a little.

"Fine," Dean says casually. "No Cheetos today either, I guess."

Sam whips his head back around. "That's not fair!" He cries. "That's not part of the deal!"

"We're not making a deal, Sammy," Dean tells him firmly. "I'm telling you what's going on and that's that. You don't eat all your breakfast, you don't get Cheetos at lunch. Capiche?"

Giving Sam an ultimatum is always a tricky business. It could go one of two ways: Sam could submit and do as he's told, or he could throw a raging tantrum that will push Dean past the brink of his patience. Usually, it's the tantrum that wins. Today, Sam glares but picks up his orange juice. Dean releases a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

Sam eats his breakfast and then falls asleep. When he wakes up, they're nearing the Arkansas line and the storm has given away to soft blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Sam rubs his eyes and blinks at Dean over the seatback.

"Dean, how much longer till Tennessee?" He asks, and Dean turns the radio down, glances in the rearview.

"We'll be there tonight," he replies, and Sam frowns, worms his fingers through the holes in his afghan.

"Am I gonna be big again?" He asks, and Dean feels like he is choking, like there suddenly isn't enough air in the car.

"Maybe," he manages. Sam looks at him, sticks his fingers in his mouth.

"How come you don't like me being a kid?" He asks in a small voice, and Dean forces himself to look away from the hurt he sees there on his brother's face. Sam doesn't understand, doesn't know, what he had before, who he was. He doesn't understand the burdens Dean bears alone, the burdens he used to share. He doesn't know that once upon a time, he was more than just some kid brother- he was Dean's very best friend, and that loss is an open wound, fresh and seeping each morning.

"I don't want to talk about it, Sam," he says, as evenly as he can manage, and Sam covers his face with his afghan and talks to himself for the rest of the morning.

Oklahoma drains away to Arkansas a little after one o'clock. Green plains turn to rutted fields, yellow with corn and white with wheat. Dean stops at a gas station and buys them sandwiches and Sam a bag of Cheetos that he demolishes in two minutes flat.

"I love Cheetos, Dean," Sam tells him around a mouthful of cheese crumbs. Dean nods, leans back against the hood of the car, watches the cars flash by on the interstate. It's a beautiful day- clear skies and warm sun and a breeze that rustles the corn stalks across the field. Beside him, Sam munches quietly, contentedly on his snack and Dean thinks suddenly, that what he'd like to do- what he'd really like to do- is cross that road and hop that fence and lose himself in that field. He'd like to burrow his way into it, hunker down amongst the plants, hide himself from a world that's always demanding something of him, that's always asking him to do this or that or depending on him. It's not fair, he thinks angrily-this shouldn't be his job. This isn't his fault, what happened to Sammy- why is it up to him to fix it?

Because it's Sammy. He knows that's why. He owes it to his brother to try. He'll never give up on him, he promised himself once. Never. That's what brothers do, isn't it? That's what he does. It's what he always does, what he always will do. He puts Sam back into the car and gets back on the road for Tennessee.

Sam's asleep when they cross the Tennessee state line at four-thirty that afternoon, and while Dean stops to gas up he does a quick calculation in his head. It's two and half more hours to Strawberry- he figures he can make in two, maybe less, if they don't have to stop anymore. When he climbs back into the Impala and eases her away from the pump, Sam sits up in the back seat, rubbing his eyes.

"Dean," he says, "When I get bigger can I still go to school?"

Dean hasn't thought about that. He hasn't thought past the act of getting his brother back- he hasn't thought about going back to Old Grave, clearing out the house, cramming the last two and a half years into the back of his mind. He doesn't even know if he can bring Sam back there- is it a better idea to not return at all? There's a sudden pang that the thought that not being able to say good bye brings. Tim and Luke and Diannah- Brian will wonder, he thinks. Sam will wonder. What is he supposed to say? Give Sam a tour of the house, lead him through rooms he won't remember? "Here's the wall you hang all your schoolwork on. Here's where you sleep. This is your bike in the garage- it needs a new front tire. Be careful of the bannister- you knocked it loose sliding down it."

There's a whole world this Sammy is missing out on, Dean thinks, but there's an even bigger world that his Sam did. This second time around deal was never easy- not to accept, not to adjust to, not to appreciate- but Dean suddenly thinks that maybe this is the wrong route. Maybe this is what Sam needs. Maybe this is what _he _needs. He wonders if he could live with himself if he turned the car around right now and never looked back.

He doesn't. He turns the radio up and takes Exit 92 towards Nashville.

They're in Milford a little before seven o'clock, and Dean stops at a gas station to find the nearest motel. He leaves Sam sleeping in the car, and when he finds their destination – the Strawberry Frontage Motel- he's careful to ease Sam out of the car without waking him. It's awkward going, carrying his duffel and Sam's bag with Sam drooling against his shoulder, but he makes it to the front desk, where the middle aged woman behind the counter smiles at him with something akin to sympathy on her face.

"Long car ride?" She asks. Sam moves, mutters something into Dean's shirtfront.

"Uh, yeah." Dean fishes his wallet out of his back pocket, drops his card onto the counter. "Arizona."

"Poor thing must be exhausted." She runs the card, hums under her breath as she snags a key card off of the peg board behind her. "Room seventeen, sweetie. Down the hall and to your left."

Down the hall and to the left is another non-descript room, like so many Dean has slept in: bland tan walls, pale brown bedcovers, mottled grey linoleum flooring. Dean lays Sammy on one of the beds, hits the head, and opens all the windows. The interstate roars by them from across the street, and Sam stirs at the sound of passing cars. He sits up, blinking, fingers scrambling across the covers for his action figure. He yawns. His hair is a tangled nest.

"Dean, are we here?"

Dean tosses his duffel onto his bed, unzips it. He puts his back to Sam as he answers. "Yeah. You wanna shower, man?"

Sam yawns again, flops over onto his back. "No."

He hasn't made Sam shower since the morning they left Old Grave. Dean sighs. "Just take one while I get dinner, okay?"

"Can we get pizza?"

Dean doesn't answer. He's sick to death of pizza, of on-the-road food: McDonalds and gas station sandwiches and coffee from Styrofoam cups. What he wouldn't give, he thinks, for something from the diner back home, something cooked in his own kitchen-

He stops that train of thought as soon as it starts. He might not have a home, this time tomorrow. If all goes as planned, he might never see Old Grave again.

He ignore the sudden sharpness in his chest and pushes Sam into the bathroom, where he runs the water in the shower not too hot and not too cool, and leaves Sam to get into it. In one of the drawers in the kitchenette he finds a stack of local delivery advertisements. He pulls out one for some Thai place- Sam used to love Thai- and orders. When he's done, he lies back on the bed and closes his eyes, lets the steady pace of the interstate outside lull him into unconsciousness-

"Dean, can I wear one'a yours?"

Dean blinks awake at the voice. Sam is standing beside the bed, towel wrapped around his shoulders, hair plastered to his forehead. There's a puddle forming on the linoleum where he stands. Dean sighs.

"Sure."

Sam nods, uses one hand to root around inside of Dean's duffel. He emerges with an old black Led Zeppelin t-shirt, one that Dean's already worn. "Sammy, I wore that one yesterday."

"It's okay, Dean." Sam looks at him out of the corner of his eye. "It smells like you."

Dean lets it be. The last thing he wants tonight- the last night, he thinks, that he has with him- is a fight. He'd like to remember this second time around Sam as something other than the whining drama queen he sometimes is.

Sam doesn't turn on the television, like he normally does. He slithers into Dean's t-shirt, leaves the wet towel on the end of his bed, and sits against his pillows with Iron Man. He's quiet, more quiet than Dean is comfortable with him being. Dean clears his throat. "You all right, Sammy?"

A small sigh. "I'm fine, Dean."

Someone knocks on the door then. It's the delivery man; Dean pays him, tips him, and locks the door. When he turns around, Sam is already at the table, head bowed, fiddling with Iron Man on his lap. "Is it pizza?" He asks in a small voice, and Dean wishes suddenly that he had sprung for that. It's Sammy's last night.

"It's Thai," he says, with an encouraging tone that he definitely does not feel. "You'll like it, Sammy."

"Okay, Dean-o."

They eat in silence. Sam picks at his noodles and curry with the chopsticks provided. He spills most of his dinner into his lap and looks at Dean like he's waiting for him to say something, but Dean doesn't. He can't. The words are all tangled up in his throat, thick and unwilling. He cleans up Sam's mess and doesn't say a damn thing.

Sam puts the television on after dinner. He sits on Dean's bed and watches the screen with blank eyes. Dean showers, takes the time to lean against the tiled wall and deep-breathe in the hot mist. When he comes out, Sam is still in his bed, buried under the covers with Iron Man crushed underneath his chin. He looks at Dean with those big brown puppy dog eyes.

"Can I sleep with you tonight, Dean?"

Like Dean could say no to him, on tonight of all nights. He turns off the lights and climbs into bed next to Sam, who traps himself immediately under Dean's arm, one leg over his stomach, his hair tickling Dean's nose. "I'm gonna have t'sleep in my own bed tomorrow night, huh?" He asks. "'Cause I'll be too big to fit here."

Sammy _fits._ That's the problem with this whole damn thing, Dean thinks. That's what's making this so hard, is that this Sam, this little tousle haired kid with freckles on his nose and the missing front tooth- he fits, right here where Dean has always wanted him, in a way that he hasn't in years. He's the little brother Dean lost, all those years ago, first to John's paramilitary lifestyle, then to Stanford, to Jess, to revenge and the hunt and the yellow eyed demon and Ruby. He's the kid Dean has always wanted him to be, and now- he's going to take all of that away from him?

He can feel Sam watching him in the dark. He's horrified to find that his eyes are wet; he brushes his moment of weakness away with one swipe of his palm. "Go to sleep, Sammy," he says gently, and Sam worms his finger through the hem of Dean's t-shirt. He says, suddenly shy, hesitant:

"Dean, when I'm big, if I don't remember- could you take care of Iron Man for me?"

Dean doesn't answer. He can't. He closes his eyes, takes his time dredging up his resolve, the memories he doesn't look at these days, the reminders _why _this is so important: twenty two year old Sam riding beside him in the Impala, complaining about his music; twenty three year old Sam with a pencil clenched between his teeth, gnawing at some mystery in a book of lore; twenty four year old Sam leaning on a shovel and laughing; twenty five year old Sam weeping into his shoulder that night in that motel room in Pontiac. _This _is why, Dean tells himself- because once upon a time, Sammy was more than this sniffling kid drooling on his pillow; he was his very best friend, and Dean needs that more than he needs this.

"Dean?"

Dean stirs. He rakes a hand through Sam's curls, presses down on the rising lump in his throat. "Go to sleep, Sammy," he says quietly, and Sam does.

Dean doesn't. He lies awake and listens to the night creak around him- footsteps in the hallway outside, a car igniting in the parking lot, a truck honking on its way down the interstate. Crickets in the bushes outside, wind rustling through the trees, a midnight rain shower that mutes the world and leaves Dean wrapped in his own little blanket of despair. He spends the night wrestling with himself, with the man he's become the last two years. He can't find that edge of who he used to be, that rough and ready guy with the vials of salt in his pockets and the gun in his waistband, the good little soldier who was ready to give up everything for the sake of the kill, for the thrill of the hunt, on the whim of his father. How long is it going to take to get back into that? Even more pressing – does he even want that anymore? Will Sam?

It's a stupid question. Sam never wanted it.

He waits until the sun creeps tentative fingers over the trees in the distance to get up. He eases out from under Sam, foggy with lack of sleep, and thumbs his phone open as he stumbles into the bathroom. He closes the door, sits on the closed toilet, and dials the first number in his phone. He's relieved when it's answered on the fourth ring.

"Bobby, tell me I'm doing the right thing."

There's a moment of profound silence on the other end of the line. Dean can almost hear Bobby scrambling to get his thoughts together. Maybe, he concedes, four o'clock in the morning is a little early to be calling with this shit.

"Do you think you're doing the right thing?" Bobby asks. He sounds haggard and weary, but expectant, like he was waiting for this call.

Dean swallows. The wall in from of him swims. Sam's clothes from the day before are still on the floor. "I don't know."

"I can't make this decision for you, Dean," Bobby says bluntly. "You know that. This is your move, your brother. I'm not going to tell you what to do."

Somehow, Dean knew that this was what Bobby was going to say. He doesn't know why he even bothered calling, except that sometimes, that's what he needs to hear: the obvious, stated in Bobby's gruff voice.

He's quiet. Bobby sighs. "Dean, boy- you know that whatever you decide, Sam won't hold it against you. You're his brother- he trusts you, and he trusts your judgment. Do us both a favor and have a little faith in yourself." He pauses, then says, slowly, "Anyways, you know- we've tried shamans before, Dean."

They had. One in Tallahassee, one in New Orleans, two of them in Atlanta. They were all failures, big fat zeroes with nothing to offer but their apologies. Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, sighs. "I know, Bobby. I know."

And he does. He knows what he's going to do before he even hangs up the phone, before he even lets himself acknowledge his decision. It's selfish of him, he thinks, but he locks that thought away. It's his weakness, his Achilles heel- but it's Sam. It's the way it's supposed to be.

Dean crawls back into bed and sleeps until noon. When he wakes Sam is watching Spongebob with a smile on his face and Iron Man on his lap. He's eaten most of the leftovers and dropped the rest on the floor, but he's picked up the clothes in the bathroom and packed the bags and washed and dressed himself, so Dean lets it go. He sits back against the headboard and watches Sam watch Nickelodeon.

"You know, Sam," he says, "You're an okay kid."

Sam blinks at him, rolls his eyes. "Whatever, Dean-o," he grouses, but he's smiling, his tongue poking out through the hole in his teeth. He flops onto his back, elbows Dean in the side. "Can I have Cheetos for lunch, Dean? I'm starving."

Dean doubts that, but he lets it go. He'd give Sammy anything, he thinks, anything he can. The world, if he was able to. He helps Sam tie his shoes and when they get out in the Impala, Sam opts to sit up front, as close to Dean as he can.

They take the highway west out of Tennessee.


End file.
